The Call of Duty 4 Freeze/Crash-Bug-Issue

MasterMinDxD · Mar 18, 2011

Basicly it's the same thing that people have been dicussing over >HERE< and i'd like to bump this again and hope we can find the answer to this problem for the people that still have this issue, and specificly.. me

I have been playing the Call of Duty series since CoD1 came out and of course I bought CoD4 as soon as it came out as well. I don't remember exactly when this problem started, but I think it was somewhere around v1.6/v1.7. Back then I was playing CoD4 pretty hardcore and was being good at it, but when this bug started, it totally pissed me off of course. I tried everything I could to fix this bug, reinstall the game, getting a new graca, preforming MemTests, temperature readings, reading forums and eventually formatting my PC, but nothing helped. So after a while I just quit the game and started to play more RTS&MMO's and on the side some CoD2 and eventually CoDWaW&MW2. All the Call of Duty games that came after CoD4 are completely crap imo so I'm not realy enjoying them and a few weeks ago, a friend asked me to play Cod4 together again, just for fun. He convinced by saying stuff like : "Let's play on 1.0 so maybe it doesn't bug there, cause it started in 1.7 right?", so eventually gave in and started playing again.

Of course, just a few hours later - The PC crashed. (With all the weird sound loops&screen freeze like you may have seen on youtube, right >HERE<) And this is realy weird because I DON'T crash/freeze on any other games :banghead:

! I run Cod4 with 333FPS(PuB) or 250FPS(ProMod) steady, my temps are fine (50*C CPU, 75*C-80*C GPU) and my CPU&RAM never go over 50% of their capacity while gaming even.

Ask me anything you like to ask, as long as its related to the issue :respect:

My System specs are on my profile and you should be able to see them by clicking on "System Specs" to the left of this page.

It would mean the world to me if someone could find the solution to this problem, because CoD4 is not worth to buy an entire new PC, and I'm not a computer expert but I realy should be able to run it with my current specs...

P.S : Forgot to say this, and maybe it's even the most important... I ofcourse tried all the suggested solutions from the Youtube video and the forum and it didn't help, obviously. But there was one "solution", that seemed to give an error for me. It should be around page11 on that forum. It's about the core affinity or something : >HERE<. But it gave this error :
"imagecfg -a 0x1 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty 4
- Modern Warfare\iw3mp.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare\iw3mp.exe contains no configuration information
C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare\iw3mp.exe contains a Subsystem Version of 4.0
C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare\iw3mp.exe updated with the following configuration information:
Process Affinity Mask: 00000001
IMAGECFG: Unable to update configuration information in image."

Edit : Fixed broken links

Mussels · Mar 18, 2011

to be honest, my opinion is pretty constant on these things: its probably your hardware. just because you dont crash in other games doesnt mean anything, because each game uses your system differently.

undo any overclocks, make sure your ram is set up properly (voltages and timings manually - and research it, some boards under/over volt, and therefore the voltage given on the ram modules may not be what it really needs) and do some decent stress testing.

oh and in case its a video card problem, turn Vsync on. its really useless to get 250+ FPS when your screen only shows 60 of them. it'll drastically cut back the noise and heat from your PC, and lessen the stress on it as well.

MasterMinDxD · Mar 18, 2011

Thanks for the fast answer, but I didn't overclock anything. This PC was assembled in the store and I never touched it, except for cleaning out dust without touching any of the devices inside.

About the Vertical Sync: It's "Forced Off" for all applications in the Global settings of the nVidia-configurationwindow. Edit : So I'll turn that on for Call of Duty for now, just don't want to gib my FPS too much.

Mussels · Mar 18, 2011

MasterMinDxD said:
Thanks for the fast answer, but I didn't overclock anything. This PC was assembled in the store and I never touched it, except for cleaning out dust without touching any of the devices inside.

About the Vertical Sync: It's "Forced Off" for all applications in the Global settings of the nVidia-configurationwindow.

doesnt mean they know what they're doing. seriously, look at the ram. its the most common cause for random crashes with large spaces of time between them. i had crashes maybe once a week, mostly resuming from sleep - and all it took was one notch up on the ram voltage to solve it. i'd get about one crash a month in games as well, usually a crash to desktop and not the entire PC however.

as for Vsync... force it on. you are getting zero benefit from it, and just wasting power (CPU, GPU and electrical) for frames your monitor cant even display.

MasterMinDxD · Mar 18, 2011

Mussels said:
doesnt mean they know what they're doing. seriously, look at the ram. its the most common cause for random crashes with large spaces of time between them. i had crashes maybe once a week, mostly resuming from sleep - and all it took was one notch up on the ram voltage to solve it.

Problem is, I don't know what I'm doing exactly either when it comes to Hardware. But I did run some MemTests and they all came back fine (back in the day when it recently started crashing.)

Mussels · Mar 18, 2011

MasterMinDxD said:
Problem is, I don't know what I'm doing exactly either when it comes to Hardware. But I did run some MemTests and they all came back fine (back in the day when it recently started crashing.)

find out your motherboard model and download its manual. look how to get into the BIOS, and how to setup ram timings and voltage. should take less than 20 minutes to achieve, even for a complete beginner.

i find that people always assume software is the problem when it comes to crashes, most of the time its hardware.

MasterMinDxD · Mar 18, 2011

It seems that everything (CPU Voltage, DRAM Voltage, ...) is turned on [Auto] in the BIOS;
- is this a good or bad thing?
- should I change the voltages to manual values?
- If so, which values do you think are appropriate?

MasterMinDxD · Mar 18, 2011

Oh dear lord... I just played with the Vsync Forced On as you said and it's impossible to play. Getting red 60fps constantly and when I just spray on a wall with an automatic gun to test it out, it fires like 1 bullet every 2 seconds. Impossible to play with.

Mussels · Mar 19, 2011

MasterMinDxD said:
Oh dear lord... I just played with the Vsync Forced On as you said and it's impossible to play. Getting red 60fps constantly and when I just spray on a wall with an automatic gun to test it out, it fires like 1 bullet every 2 seconds. Impossible to play with.

'red' ?

as to the voltages, leave all of them alone except for the ram stuff.

MasterMinDxD · Mar 19, 2011

Mussels said:
'red' ?

In call of duty 4, if your FPS drops below a certain amount that's needed to play the game decently, its color goes Red instead of White.

Mussels said:
as to the voltages, leave all of them alone except for the ram stuff.

So shall I put the DRAM Voltage to the Minimum, Maximum or some random voltage in between?

xBruce88x · Mar 19, 2011

wait... this is a store built rig? may i ask who the vendor is and system model. I'm curious about the system ram quality (like if it even has heat spreaders) and psu make.

as for the bullet thing at 60fps... it shouldn't be that slow... mine seemed to be fine with the weapons at 60fps.

then again i've heard at 250fps the game does some weird things (like weapons shoot faster than they should) when the game is set to low settings. i guess you used to this.

edit: is that framerate counter with fraps? i know it also turns red when you're recording video.

MasterMinDxD · Mar 19, 2011

- It's not a store built rig, I chose the components myself and they put it together & configured it for me in the store. The RAM&PSU is in my System Specs, it's 4GB Kingston RAM and 850W PSU.

- It realy feels uberslow for me, I'm used to things going fast

- No it's just the build-in ability from CoD4 : Console -> /cg_drawfps 1

xBruce88x · Mar 19, 2011

kingston valueram... probably not the best for gaming. you can find heat spreaders to go on the ram, that might help some. do you have any programs to monitor the temps of your hardware? (gpu-z is good for the video card, you can have it loggin the temps in the background) pc wizard will monitor cpu temps. i'm still puzzled as to why cpu-z doesn't monitor temps.

MasterMinDxD · Mar 19, 2011

MasterMinDxD said:
50*C CPU, 75*C-80*C GPU

I use GPU-Z & CoreTemp, keeping logs so I can see the exact temperatures right before I crash.

About these heatspreaders, does it realy help that much? And I first want to know if it's actually needed, because as far as i can see, my temps are fine.

xBruce88x · Mar 19, 2011

i'll put it this way... every set of gaming ram i've ever seen comes with them. of course its hard to say if this will for sure fix your problem. i think if the ram getting hot was the issue you would have had trouble from the start... unless they've slowly been damaged from heat over time.

MasterMinDxD · Mar 19, 2011

Back to the RAM Voltage. The Minimum value is 1.50V and the Maximum I can put the DRAM Voltage is 2.78V. So I tried to put the voltage as high as possible (& then check if it still crashes, etc etc), but it instantly gave me an error after the automatic reboot : "Overclocking failed! Please enter SETUP to re-configure your options." Any value above 1.86V would give this error. So obviously I put the DRAM Voltage on 1.86V for now and going see if the game still crashes tomorrow.
Time for me to get some sleep.

xBruce88x · Mar 19, 2011

you really don't want to increase the voltage with ram that doesn't even have heat spreaders. the only need to up the voltage is if you're going to overclock the ram, and then again not recommended without proper cooling. if anything i'd leave it at 1.5 to get it nice and cool

Mussels · Mar 19, 2011

MasterMinDxD said:
Back to the RAM Voltage. The Minimum value is 1.50V and the Maximum I can put the DRAM Voltage is 2.78V. So I tried to put the voltage as high as possible (& then check if it still crashes, etc etc), but it instantly gave me an error after the automatic reboot : "Overclocking failed! Please enter SETUP to re-configure your options." Any value above 1.86V would give this error. So obviously I put the DRAM Voltage on 1.86V for now and going see if the game still crashes tomorrow.
Time for me to get some sleep.

jesus, 2.78 would fry ram! dont do it that high. turning it up a notch or two is what i said earlier!

try about 1.75-1.8, lower it before you fry your ram

xBruce88x · Mar 19, 2011

after reading that thread you posted in about the freeze bug... i'm wondering if theres really anything you can do about it.

Virus-j · Mar 19, 2011

Im not 100% sure if i can help in anyway but I remember seeing someone having this problem on the micromart forums when i was a member on there. As far as i can remember he had to run the game with one core as he was on dual and another member happen to mention that if your running COD4 on anything more than 2 cores it will cause Random Freezes and Crashes Regardless of patches.

I also saw from a few other forums after searching through google that another fix is something to with the sound drivers vista install for Realtek and that removing them fixed it. Not sure if you are using onboard sound ?

Also found that someone fixed this by (again to do with audio) by changing the sound rate bit depth for there playback device.

I still think it's something to do with how many cores the cpu has as it seems to be mentioned in every forum i found and they seem to give the same warning "running COD4 on anything more than 2 cores it will cause Random Freezes and Crashes Regardless of patches"

I have never used or heard of infact imagecfg but i take it that it just makes the programme use X amount of cores permanently ? I dont think the guy on micromart used that (trying to find forum post for you now see if that may find something to help you)

When you used Imagecfg to make Cod4 run with one core did the Cod actually start up or did you just get that Error ?

Reason i ask is that if it did not Start up, couldn't you just Run the game as normal without imagecfg then when your on main menu press Ctrl-alt-Del then just set Cod 4 to use one core from there and see how that goes and if it runs ok perhaps you could increase it to 2 cores ?

Mussels · Mar 19, 2011

Virus-j said:
Im not 100% sure if i can help in anyway but I remember seeing someone having this problem on the micromart forums when i was a member on there. As far as i can remember he had to run the game with one core as he was on dual and another member happen to mention that if your running COD4 on anything more than 2 cores it will cause Random Freezes and Crashes Regardless of patches.

I also saw from a few other forums after searching through google that another fix is something to with the sound drivers vista install for Realtek and that removing them fixed it. Not sure if you are using onboard sound ?

Also found that someone fixed this by (again to do with audio) by changing the sound rate bit depth for there playback device.

I still think it's something to do with how many cores the cpu has as it seems to be mentioned in every forum i found and they seem to give the same warning "running COD4 on anything more than 2 cores it will cause Random Freezes and Crashes Regardless of patches"

I have never used or heard of infact imagecfg but i take it that it just makes the programme use X amount of cores permanently ? I dont think the guy on micromart used that (trying to find forum post for you now see if that may find something to help you)

When you used Imagecfg to make Cod4 run with one core did the Cod actually start up or did you just get that Error ?

Reason i ask is that if it did not Start up, couldn't you just Run the game as normal without imagecfg then when your on main menu press Ctrl-alt-Del then just set Cod 4 to use one core from there and see how that goes and if it runs ok perhaps you could increase it to 2 cores ?

i've ran every cod, including 1 and 2 on my hexacore with zero problems. people who say it works by disabling one core, are simply lessening the load an their unstable systems - if they dont use a core thats unstable (due to OC, or improper setup) then suddenly their 'stability' increases.

Virus-j · Mar 19, 2011

Iv never had problems with any of the cod games myself and like you iv had 1,2,3,6 Cores myself.
Thought id post up the info i found though ; ) I see what your saying though so really like you pretty much said he needs to check out his Bios fully before we can rule that out.

MasterMinDxD · Mar 19, 2011

Mussels said:
jesus, 2.78 would fry ram! dont do it that high. turning it up a notch or two is what i said earlier!

try about 1.75-1.8, lower it before you fry your ram

It's on 1.86V, couldn't put it higher as the BIOS itself would give an error >.<

Virus-j said:
Im not 100% sure if i can help in anyway but I remember seeing someone having this problem on the micromart forums when i was a member on there. As far as i can remember he had to run the game with one core as he was on dual and another member happen to mention that if your running COD4 on anything more than 2 cores it will cause Random Freezes and Crashes Regardless of patches.

I also saw from a few other forums after searching through google that another fix is something to with the sound drivers vista install for Realtek and that removing them fixed it. Not sure if you are using onboard sound ?

Also found that someone fixed this by (again to do with audio) by changing the sound rate bit depth for there playback device.

I still think it's something to do with how many cores the cpu has as it seems to be mentioned in every forum i found and they seem to give the same warning "running COD4 on anything more than 2 cores it will cause Random Freezes and Crashes Regardless of patches"

I have never used or heard of infact imagecfg but i take it that it just makes the programme use X amount of cores permanently ? I dont think the guy on micromart used that (trying to find forum post for you now see if that may find something to help you)

When you used Imagecfg to make Cod4 run with one core did the Cod actually start up or did you just get that Error ?

Reason i ask is that if it did not Start up, couldn't you just Run the game as normal without imagecfg then when your on main menu press Ctrl-alt-Del then just set Cod 4 to use one core from there and see how that goes and if it runs ok perhaps you could increase it to 2 cores ?

- I was trying to make the game run with 1core but it instantly gave me the error message I posted.

- I'm not using realtek, I'm using SoundMax and the drivers are updated.

- I already changed the soundrate, since that was one of the suggested solutions from the old thread. I changed it from 24bit 48000hz to 16bit 44000hz, didn't help.

- The ImageCFG is not realy a program. It's an extra command you create by putting it in the System32 folder and it should make your selected program use specific cores after using the command : > imagecfg -a 0x1 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare\iw3mp.exe <, it's explained >HERE<. But for some reason it gave me the error. That error wasn't when booting up Call of Duty, it was an error message in the CommandPrompt itself after using the command. However I could be completely wrong...

MasterMinDxD · Mar 19, 2011

Played 20minutes and crashed again :/ Now on to 1.5V for the DRAM, if that doesn't help either, it's going back to [Auto] and we'll have to search elsewhere I guess.

Virus-j · Mar 19, 2011

MasterMinDxD said:
It's on 1.86V, couldn't put it higher as the BIOS itself would give an error >.<

- I was trying to make the game run with 1core but it instantly gave me the error message I posted.

- I'm not using realtek, I'm using SoundMax and the drivers are updated.

- I already changed the soundrate, since that was one of the suggested solutions from the old thread. I changed it from 24bit 48000hz to 16bit 44000hz, didn't help.

- The ImageCFG is not realy a program. It's an extra command you create by putting it in the System32 folder and it should make your selected program use specific cores after using the command : > imagecfg -a 0x1 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare\iw3mp.exe <, it's explained >HERE<. But for some reason it gave me the error. That error wasn't when booting up Call of Duty, it was an error message in the CommandPrompt itself after using the command. However I could be completely wrong...

I ment have you tried running Cod4 with one core without using ImageCFG, Like Starting up the game first then using Task manager to set it to use one core instead of ImageCFG ? Reason i say this is because Running Cod4 with one core may actually work and ImageCFG may be playing up as if it's showing a error message it's most likely not doing it.....

Processor	Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 2.83GHz
Motherboard	ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe WiFi 775 P45/ICH10R DDR3
Memory	Kingston ValueRAM 4094MB 1333MHz DDR3 CL9 DIMM KIT
Video Card(s)	ASUS nVidia GeForce EN-GTX260 896MB DDR3
Storage	Western Digital 500GB Caviar GreenPower SATA2 16MB
Display(s)	Plug en Play-monitor Samsung 245B+ 24"
Case	Gigabyte GZ-AA3CB Poseidon 310 Black + Antec PSU TruePower Quattro 850W 24P ATX 12v fan 80mm
Audio Device(s)	SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio
Software	Windows Vista™ Home Premium Service Pack 1

System Name	Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load)
Processor	Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core)
Motherboard	Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded)
Cooling	Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate
Memory	2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V)
Video Card(s)	Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W))
Storage	2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2
Display(s)	Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) \| Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) \| Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144)
Case	Fractal Design R6
Audio Device(s)	Logitech G560 \| Corsair Void pro RGB \|Blue Yeti mic
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Mouse	Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL
Keyboard	Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps)
VR HMD	Oculus Rift S + Quest 2
Software	Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware!
Benchmark Scores	Nyooom.

Processor	Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 2.83GHz
Motherboard	ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe WiFi 775 P45/ICH10R DDR3
Memory	Kingston ValueRAM 4094MB 1333MHz DDR3 CL9 DIMM KIT
Video Card(s)	ASUS nVidia GeForce EN-GTX260 896MB DDR3
Storage	Western Digital 500GB Caviar GreenPower SATA2 16MB
Display(s)	Plug en Play-monitor Samsung 245B+ 24"
Case	Gigabyte GZ-AA3CB Poseidon 310 Black + Antec PSU TruePower Quattro 850W 24P ATX 12v fan 80mm
Audio Device(s)	SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio
Software	Windows Vista™ Home Premium Service Pack 1

System Name	Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load)
Processor	Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core)
Motherboard	Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded)
Cooling	Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate
Memory	2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V)
Video Card(s)	Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W))
Storage	2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2
Display(s)	Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) \| Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) \| Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144)
Case	Fractal Design R6
Audio Device(s)	Logitech G560 \| Corsair Void pro RGB \|Blue Yeti mic
Power Supply	Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY)
Mouse	Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL
Keyboard	Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps)
VR HMD	Oculus Rift S + Quest 2
Software	Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware!
Benchmark Scores	Nyooom.

Processor	Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 2.83GHz
Motherboard	ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe WiFi 775 P45/ICH10R DDR3
Memory	Kingston ValueRAM 4094MB 1333MHz DDR3 CL9 DIMM KIT
Video Card(s)	ASUS nVidia GeForce EN-GTX260 896MB DDR3
Storage	Western Digital 500GB Caviar GreenPower SATA2 16MB
Display(s)	Plug en Play-monitor Samsung 245B+ 24"
Case	Gigabyte GZ-AA3CB Poseidon 310 Black + Antec PSU TruePower Quattro 850W 24P ATX 12v fan 80mm
Audio Device(s)	SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio
Software	Windows Vista™ Home Premium Service Pack 1

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Cooling	Eh it doesn't thermal throttle
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Video Card(s)	RX 560D 4GB / Navi II 8CU
Storage	240gb 2.5 SSD / 1TB nvme
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Case	Gateway / Valve LE
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Power Supply	380w oem / 65w valve USB-C
Mouse	Purple Walmart special, 1600dpi. Black desk mat
Keyboard	SteelSeries Apex 100 / virtual
VR HMD	Lmao
Software	Windows 10 / Steam OS
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Processor	AMD FX 8320e 3.8Ghz
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Cooling	Corsair Hydro Series H55
Memory	Kinston Hyper X RED DDr3 1600Mhz 2x4Gb
Video Card(s)	AMD NITRO+ Radeon RX 470 8gb
Storage	Sandisk 240GB SSD /Seagate 1TB (STEAM) / 2 x Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB (Storage)
Display(s)	Samsung S24D390HL PLS 23.6 X2 Dual Monitor
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Audio Device(s)	Onboard
Power Supply	XFX XT Series 600W PSU 80+ Bronze
Mouse	MOTOSPEED V30 Wired Optical Gaming Mouse
Keyboard	MOTOSPEED Inflictor CK104 Mechanical
Software	Windows 10 Pro 64BIT

The Call of Duty 4 Freeze/Crash-Bug-Issue

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